Can Clean Energy Make Brazil an AI Superpower?

For the last year, the energy and climate narrative has been intimately intertwined with questions about AI’s impact on energy demand. As tech companies race to construct new data centers, they’ve turned the U.S. emissions reduction story on its head.

In this environment, Brazil senses an opportunity. Up to this point, the AI demand story has been a U.S. one, but Brazilian officials want to convince tech companies to set up shop in their country. They cite the nation’s strategic location as a central hub in South America and supportive policy environment, but the biggest selling point by far is the country’s electricity system: nearly 90% comes from renewable energy and Brazil already has good transmission infrastructure that moves electricity across the country.

As I talked to officials on the ground in Brazil this week, the topic seemed to be on the tip of everyone’s tongue. “Our message to the world, on the basis of our plan, is that AI [power demand] is satiable with usage of renewable energy sources,” Luis Manuel Rebelo Fernandes, Brazil’s deputy minister of science, technology, and innovation, told me on a panel at the Web Summit in Rio de Janeiro. 

There are signs the bet is paying off: dozens of data centers are in development across Brazil as big tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft pour billions into the sector there.  

It’s an important story for Brazil and the Latin American market, of course, but I share it also to illustrate the competitive dividend that can come from clean energy. As electricity in some emerging market countries increasingly comes from solar power, they may stand to gain foreign investment—not just from AI but also from any foreign investor who wants their products made cleanly. 

Brazil’s clean energy story begins long before climate change became a global concern. Beginning in the late 19th century, the country built dams to power its industry, harnessing some of Brazil’s 37,000 miles of waterways for fuel development. By the 1960s, the country was building mega dams that on their own provide much of the country’s power. Because dams aren’t necessarily near cities, Brazil built an extensive transmission system creating an integrated network. (Unlike the U.S., which is set up in a complex maze with three main regions with regulatory authority divided between states and the federal government.)

In short, Brazil didn’t create a clean grid to be able to tout an environmental message. But, as big companies continue to work toward their climate goals (even if more quietly than before), the grid gives it a critical advantage.

“Brazil is well positioned,” Luciana Aparecida da Costa, director of infrastructure, energy transition, and climate change at BNDES, the Brazilian development bank, told me in São Paulo. “But we know that we have to compete with other countries to attract this.”

Nonetheless, as much as the country’s electric grid is a selling point, Brazil still has questions to answer. Climate change has affected water levels, sparking concerns about the reliability of hydropower. And a rapid rise in electricity demand could stress the grid just as is happening in the U.S. 

To address those concerns, the Brazilian government has prioritized supporting new renewable energy generation to go along with new data centers. Funding to ensure that happens is a key plank in the county’s $4 billion AI plan launched last year. “Every expansion of high performance computing is associated in the plan to the development of dedicated sources of renewable energy,” said Fernandes. 

And private companies are looking to do the same. In April, for example, Reuters reported that TikTok parent company ByteDance was considering a massive data center investment in Brazil as the company grows its AI footprint—with new wind power attached.

To be clear, there’s no question that the AI race, as it stands today, is between the U.S. and China. That’s where the models that AI runs on are being developed, and where the most capital is being deployed. But Brazil’s pitch—and its early success—is a reminder of the competitive appeal of clean energy in the global market.

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